Sarah Millicent Hermione Touchet-Jesson, Baroness Audley (néeSpencer-Churchill;[a] 7 October 1914 – 24 September 1982), was an English actress and dancer and a daughter of Winston Churchill.
It has been both stated and confirmed by multiple sources,[who?] including Sarah Churchill's sister, Lady Soames, that Winston and Clementine Churchill neither liked nor approved of Sarah's first two husbands. Towards the end of her marriage to Vic Oliver, she began an affair with the American ambassador to Britain, John Winant; it is believed the failure of the relationship contributed to the depression that led to Winant's suicide in 1947.[2] Only Sarah's third marriage to Lord Audley (the love of her life, it was said) was greeted with warm approval by both parents.[citation needed]
In 1964 Churchill became romantically involved with African-American emigrated jazz singer and painter, Lobo Nocho, and there were reports that the two might marry.[3][4] Her father was also believed to have disapproved of this relationship.[5]
During the Second World War, Churchill joined the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). In her account of the work of photo reconnaissanceEvidence in CameraConstance Babington Smith records that she was with them and worked closely on the interpretation of photographs for the 1942 invasion of North Africa, Operation Torch. Known by the name Sarah Oliver, Babington Smith says she was "a quick and versatile interpreter." Aspects of Churchill's wartime service are also described in detail in Women of Intelligence: Winning the Second World War with Air Photos.
American author Christopher Ogden's biography of Pamela Harriman and other sources indicate that during the war she had an affair with (married) US Ambassador John Gilbert Winant, and that it ended badly. Winant committed suicide in 1947.
On 17 November 1950, Churchill starred in "Witness for the Prosecution", an episode of the American TV program Danger.[7] She appeared on both the Jack Benny radio and television programmes. On television, she appeared on the episode "How Jack Met Rochester".
In 1960, she appeared as Lisa Grayson in the play "The Night Life of a Virile Potato" by Gloria Russell at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London.[8]
In 1961, she appeared as Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It at the Pembroke-in-the-round Theatre in West Croydon. Her parents were noted as paying a surprise visit to watch her performance, which was almost entirely attended by Croydon schoolchildren. Her father, who sat in the front row of an in-the-round performance and so was highly visible throughout, fell asleep.
Prints
During the course of her life she created several lithographic prints. In the 1950s Churchill produced several prints featuring Malibu, California.[9] Later in the 1970s, Churchill commercially published a collaborative series of portraits of her father, Sir Winston Churchill through Curtis Hooper, entitled "A Visual Philosophy of Sir Winston Churchill". The series was carefully constructed by Churchill to represent her father's great drive. In the series, (28 in total) most of the works were based on famous photographs chosen by Churchill, while one was based on Churchill's drawing of her father. Each work was given an embossed quotation by Sir Winston Churchill and was signed by both Sarah Churchill and artist Curtis Hooper in pencil and pressed with the artists seal. Artist proofs were made available for each work, with a run of no more than 150 artist proofs, per work, also signed by both Sarah Churchill and artist Curtis Hooper in pencil, below the portrait. All artist proofs bore the artist's embossed seal.[10]
Sarah Churchill appeared in a London revival of Shaw's Pygmalion in the 1950s, but drinking had become a problem. She was arrested for making a scene in the street on a number of occasions and even spent a short spell on remand in Holloway Prison. She wrote frankly about this in her 1981 autobiographyKeep on Dancing.
^Sanders, Charles L. (28 February 1966). "Paris Scratchpad". Jet Magazine. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
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Jennet Conant (29 September 2020). "THE DAUGHTERS OF YALTA: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Family, Love, and War". The New York Times. Retrieved 29 September 2020. As he paced and fretted, it fell to 30-year-old Sarah, a former actress who had enlisted in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, to take on the delicate role of supporting Winston that her mother, Clementine, had gratefully ceded. Sarah could manage her mercurial father, ease his worries and temper the linguistic torrents when he vented his spleen.
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